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MetaGlossary – Two Million Terms, Phrases And Acronyms

MetaGlossary provides users with access to over 2 million words, terms and so on. It works in a similar manner to the Google define: function, though I’ve found that it tends to be rather more comprehensive. Definitions for ‘search engine optimization’ resulted in 1 related phrase with Google and 15 with MetaGlossary. Google gave a total of 23 definitions while MetaGlossary gave me 85 definitions. To be fair, this wasn’t always the case, since Google did come up trumps on some terms that I searched for, such as RAC (I was looking for Royal Automobile Club) and the MetaGlossary failed to find that one at all.

It initially just shows 3 results, which I found were usually enough to give me a handle on a term, but you can expand this with the ‘more’ option. In situations where a term may have very different meanings MetaGlossary breaks this out with the use of keywords, which I found helpful. Both work with personal names as well, though neither is perfect – Google found one Danny Sullivan (Formula One driver), while MetaGlossary found both the driver and a fictional character from a soap opera. Consequently I wouldn’t want to rely on either resource to give me a good overview of an individual, but worth thinking of if you are getting stuck looking for data on a person, though my first port of call would tend to be Ask to see if they had a quick answer/biography.

MetaGlossary is certainly worth using if you need an overview of a subject, or a quick definition, and while it’s reasonably comprehensive it’s worth remembering the alternatives. As a complete aside, this is the first time that I’ve seen an animated favicon in operation, though you have to be quite quick to catch it!

Some opinions expressed in this article may be those of a guest author and not necessarily Search Engine Land. Staff authors are listed here.

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